USA Road trip HELP! Nashville to Texas?!

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  • stevenhp1987
    stevenhp1987 Posts: 907
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    edited 8 April 2018 at 2:15PM
    I just came back from a Road Trip this week that was similar.

    Flew from Manchester to Houston (Singapore airlines keep doing deals!). Slept in Beaumont on night one. Over the course of 2 weeks did the cities in this order: New Orleans -> Dallas/Fort Worth -> Austin -> San Antonio -> Houston.

    We de-scoped Nashville due to the long drive!

    If you want to fly into Nashville and back from "Texas" (Houston or Austin I guess?) then you'd need to factor in very expensive one way car rental charges.

    The roads between cities were very uneventful, especially the long drive between New Orleans and Dallas - I cannot imagine the route from Nashville to Dallas being any better.
    lulu984 wrote: »
    The price I was quoted for 14 nights in Sept, two adults, flights, accommodation, internal flights and car hire was £3800. Which I think is a really good price!?

    If you do it yourself, (I've never used a package operator) it will always come out cheaper!

    Our road trip cost us around £1.5k for 2 people covering flights, hotels, car hire etc. We then spent just under £1k between us on food, drinks, attraction admissions, shopping and gas.

    £3.8k is very expensive and you still need to eat/drink etc.

    What are you looking to see in Texas exactly? What it is you will be sightseeing will greatly adjust your route and options available to you.

    Texas itself is basically a large country in size. We really wanted to see Big Bend national park, but due to the drive (~9 hours one way!) it was not feasible and certainly wouldn't be feasible if you started in Nashville!!!

    Therefore you need to think what it is you want to see and check if it's even feasible within 2 weeks. You don't want to spend the whole 2 weeks driving instead of actually seeing/doing things.
  • lulu984
    lulu984 Posts: 394 Forumite
    edited 8 April 2018 at 2:57PM
    Change of plan now guys - we're not doing Texas. Doesn't seem worth the extra drive/hassle for what we'd get out of it. Defo want to stick with Nashville, I am now thinking of Kentucky, New Orleans, Atlanta & Memphis.

    I have been pricing it up separately and it seems to be coming out so expensive.
    How did you manage to do it so cheap? The car rental and accommodation and flights Ive found individually is coming out at more than the package price.
    Did you book your accommodation before you went, or wait until you were there?

    Where do I start in planning it all and finding good prices? I'm worried about all the extra costs, taxes and insurance etc

    TIA :eek:
  • blindman
    blindman Posts: 5,659
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    lulu984 wrote: »
    Change of plan now guys - we're not doing Texas. Doesn't seem worth the extra drive/hassle for what we'd get out of it. Defo want to stick with Nashville, I am now thinking of Kentucky, New Orleans, Atlanta & Memphis.



    Where do I start in planning it all and finding good prices? I'm worried about all the extra costs, taxes and insurance etc

    TIA :eek:

    Give Atlanta miss IMHO as you only have two weeks and it's just a big city.

    Accomodation booked as you go if out of season, which you should be late Sept\Oct.

    Kayak for flights, look for nearby airports

    Car hire
    Look ou for one way drop off feees they can be horrendous.
  • PeacefulWaters
    PeacefulWaters Posts: 8,495 Forumite
    I'd be tempted to take an internal flight from Nashville to Vegas/Phoenix/San Francisco and start the driving holiday there.
  • blindman
    blindman Posts: 5,659
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    edited 8 April 2018 at 5:29PM
    I'd be tempted to take an internal flight from Nashville to Vegas/Phoenix/San Francisco and start the driving holiday there.
    That's a whole new ball game and needs more than two weeks.

    OP needs to list what they want out of this trip as USA is a huge place and you cannot do it in two weeks.

    One of our trips was to Fly into New Orleans then a return trip up the river road to Memphis.

    Pleasant.
  • mgdavid
    mgdavid Posts: 6,705
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    lulu984 wrote: »
    ........
    I have been pricing it up separately and it seems to be coming out so expensive.
    How did you manage to do it so cheap? .......

    The costs I put in post #9 were straight from skyscanner.
    The questions that get the best answers are the questions that give most detail....
  • stevenhp1987
    stevenhp1987 Posts: 907
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    lulu984 wrote: »
    I have been pricing it up separately and it seems to be coming out so expensive.
    How did you manage to do it so cheap? The car rental and accommodation and flights Ive found individually is coming out at more than the package price.

    Use price comparison sites and be flexible on your dates, e.g. it could be half the price to fly out the proceeding day as an example.

    I use SkyScanner and Momondo for flights (other comparisons such as Kayak exist). Google the name of the travel agent before booking tickets. I've used these travel agents to book tickets multiple times!

    These have tools to search for flexible dates.

    I then search for hotels using Trivago and where possible book via hotels.com to get reward nights!

    Depending on the date of travel, you could leave hotel booking to Black Friday... I booked almost all my hotels for my recent trip on Black Friday last year. Not all were on deals, but maybe a third were! My best being a 4* suite for $49.99pn for 3 nights in Dallas (Wyndham Dallas suites park central):)

    What airport are you looking to fly from? You may need to be flexible with the rise of "low-cost" long haul airlines.

    My recent trip I drove 4 hours from Southampton to Manchester to catch a flight!

    When we plan a road trip in the USA, we take inspiration from tripadvisor or road trip companies before planning our itinerary.

    e.g. http://www.theamericanroadtripcompany.co.uk/roadtrips/classic-deep-south/ - For a "deep south" trip like this, I would take inspiration from something like that, see what cities and attractions they see, then book it all myself!
  • cubegame
    cubegame Posts: 2,042
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    For your new plans I'd be tempted to fly direct to Atlanta or Charlotte and do a circular Road trip taking in the Blue Ridge Parkway and Carolina coasts.

    Then do Nashville as a spur trip by flying.

    Do-able in two weeks.
  • John259
    John259 Posts: 1,085
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    cubegame wrote: »
    taking in the Blue Ridge Parkway
    Yes! That's a fabulous drive with lots of scenery and interesting places to stop.

    You might also include the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, which is at the southern end of the Parkway.
    "Such an enormous country, you realize when you cross it" - Jack Kerouac
  • We did this trip a few years ago...


    Memphis>Vicksburg>Natchez>New Orleans>Great Smokey Mountains (Gatlinburg)>Nashville>Memphis


    In Memphis we did Sun Studios, Gibson factory, Graceland, Rock N Soul museum, Civil Rights museum - all excellent.


    The country music hall of fame in Nashville is very good.


    We did Civil War stuff in Vicksburg & Natchez, foody/history stuff in New Orleans, nature in Gt Smoky Mountains...


    I think we did this in 2 weeks, and then flew to Dallas for a few days for the Texas State Fair. There were a couple of days of long drives but nothing too onerous (my husband doesn't drive, so I did it all).
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